GBET

DATA CENTER POST DISCUSSES GBET WITH NEW CHAIRPERSON9/15/2016

Data Center POST recently met with Simon Dodsworth, Vice President, Head of Voice and Mobile at Telia Carrier, as well as the newly elected Chair of the Executive Council of the Global Business Exchange for Telecom (GBET) at International Telecoms Week (ITW). ITW is the world's largest meeting for the global wholesale telecommunications community, which took place at the Hyatt Regency and Swissôtel in Chicago May 8-11, 2016.

GBET is a global consortium of carriers cooperatively working to define standards for the electronic exchange of voice and data in international wholesale with the aim of reducing administrative cost and the ambiguity of various transactions. As a result, companies can focus on their core strengths, maximizing revenue from new opportunities and better managing present and future challenges.

During our interview, Mr. Dodsworth filled us in on the key takeaways from the GBET-hosted ITW roundtable as well as the future goals of the organization’s Executive Council.

At the roundtable, participants discussed eContract, which was developed to identify common ground and design best standards in order to deliver complete transparency in contract exchanges. The solution addresses the challenges and complexities that result from certain inadequacies currently in place, including non-standardized wording in general clauses, numbering plans, varying interfaces to OSS/BSS systems, in addition to the sheer volume of data that each carrier must be involved with to effectively manage their contracts.

“The mission of the roundtable was trying to get people actively involved and to get the message across that participation achieves the snowball effect that we are trying to create,” Mr. Dodsworth commented.

Each of the founding members of GBET would like to implement the eContract as their standard. As Mr. Dodsworth remarked, “It becomes a question of how do you roll it out to the counterparts that you are conducting business with.”

Future goals for GBET include promoting wider awareness of the organization’s mission. A year from now, Mr. Dodsworth would like to see eContract gain traction to the degree that its adoption is widespread across the industry in addition to emanating from GBET Board members.